


if you think growing up is tough then you’re just not grown-up enough

by suzukiblu



Series: mad elephants [14]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, F/M, Fantasy Gender Roles, Gen, Homesickness, Long Lost/Secret Relatives, Major Character Injury, Mating Cycles/In Heat, No Sex, Omega Jesse McCree, Runaway, Travel, Young Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Young Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 05:03:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29896035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Jesse wants shit to be simple again. He wants it all easy like it used to be, everything clear and obvious and exactly what he knows how to handle. He wants to be planning the next heist with Ashe, he wants to be making an easy escape, he wants Deadeye burning inside him, he wants to not know how to throw a proper punch or anything about his parents, he wants . . . he wants . . .He wants tonot know.But he knows.
Relationships: Jesse McCree & Angela "Mercy" Ziegler, Jesse McCree/Original Female Character(s)
Series: mad elephants [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1114917
Comments: 9
Kudos: 68





	if you think growing up is tough then you’re just not grown-up enough

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve had this one done for kind of a while, tbh, I just was debating some of the details for a bit and then, uh, kinda didn’t stop debating. My bad! 
> 
> Also, it's been a minute since I kept up with canon regularly, so forgive me if anything too contrary to it happens. But hey, AUs are AUs. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Jesse locks himself in a gas station bathroom about a hundred miles away from that damn base and drops into a crouch and bursts into tears. He don't sob, 'cuz if he learned anything growing up the way he did it was how to cry quiet, but it's a close thing. 

He don't even know why he's crying. He _don’t_ cry. It's just—too much. It's too much, and he's fucking _overwhelmed_. 

He wants shit to be simple again. He wants it all easy like it used to be, everything clear and obvious and exactly what he knows how to handle. He wants to be planning the next heist with Ashe, he wants to be making an easy escape, he wants Deadeye burning inside him, he wants to not know how to throw a proper punch or anything about his parents, he wants . . . he wants . . . 

He wants to _not know_. 

But he knows. 

He knows so much he didn't before, and nowhere near enough at all. 

Nobody's ever gonna be able to tell him anything else about himself. Not like Reyes and Morrison could. 

He shouldn't _care_ about that. He's never cared about that kinda shit before. And he knows damn well how little somebody's biological relatives really mean when all is said and done. The shit they want, the shit they expect—that don't mean nothing. 

Reyes and Morrison wanted to mean something, though, and they didn't want anything he ain't got. 

Except in all the ways they _only_ wanted what he ain't got. 

Jesse exhales raggedly. Ashe. He's gotta think about what he's gonna tell Ashe, 'cause it _ain't_ gonna be the truth. Even if he wanted to, she'd never believe it. She'd think he was crazy or lying or a trap. 

He's torn apart that go bag six times. Ain't a single damn tracker in the thing. Not that he can find, anyway. 

Jesse takes another ragged breath and nearly chokes on it. He don't know what's fucking _wrong_ with him. He ain't this stupid. He ain't this _sensitive_. He ain't—

He's an idiot, actually, he realizes. His heat's due. 

Fuck. Of all the _fucking_ times . . . 

No wonder he's fucking crying like a stupid kid. No wonder he's all tore up and crazy-feeling. Of course he fucking broke out three days out from heat without even thinking about it. 

Well, that gives him three days to get as far as he can, he figures, then inhales one last ragged breath and gets back to his feet. 

.

.

.

Reyes's spare clothes are a lot less attention-grabbing than Jesse’s leathers. They even fit him just right, comfortable as anything. 

Jesse don't rightly know how he feels about that. 

.

.

.

“Don’t _you_ smell delicious,” some dressed-up knothead Jesse don’t know from Adam says to him on the bus that’s getting him out of town, smiling all nice and pretty and using their alpha voice. Jesse could fucking _stab_ them, he thinks, but he don’t. But he could. There was a knife in Reyes’s bag, and it’s in his jacket now. Easy reach. 

He misses Ziegler, weirdly. Ziegler wouldn’t be bothering him about how he smells right now, she’d just be reading one of her books or talking his ear off about something he don’t understand or asking him questions about how to shoot better. She ain’t interested in nothing he ain’t interested in, and she’d never say stupid shit like that to him even if she were. 

“Fuck off,” he says, and turns away to look out the window instead. 

.

.

.

Jesse misses a lot of things right now, and don’t none of ‘em make any damn sense. 

.

.

.

Jesse makes it as far as he can in three days, and then he finds himself a half-decent motel room with a sturdy door that locks, and he dens down as much as he can let himself. He ain't the opulent sort when it comes to nesting, so he don't worry too much about it. 

He ain't got shit to do but watch bad TV and take repeated inventory of his supplies, of course, 'cause he wasn't smart enough to stop and buy a book or nothing, but he's spent plenty of heats worse off. It's a damn sight better than being locked in somebody's closet. 

Except for the part where there's just about nothing to distract him from the inside of his own head, anyway. 

Jesse don’t mind the inside of his head, usually, but usually he ain’t all heated up and _sensitive_ and thinking too damn much. Usually he hasn’t just run away from the scariest fucking thing he’s ever . . . 

He inhales. Exhales. He don’t think about it. 

The scariest fucking thing he’s ever wanted, he thinks, and buries himself in his nest and _hates_ himself for it. 

He ain’t this soft. Ain’t this stupid. Just ‘cause Reyes and Morrison wanted _him_ , that don’t mean he owes them shit. He’s made himself a life already, and it’s a perfectly good one. Suits him just fine. 

He ain’t tried to call Ashe yet, though. And yeah, she probably burned all the numbers he knew the moment she heard he’d gotten arrested, but he ain’t even _tried_. Not once. 

He don’t know what he’s doing no more. 

.

.

.

Heat’s miserable. Jesse feels gross and alone and bored and _sad_ the whole fucking time. Fucking _sad_ , of all things. 

Stupid, he thinks. 

So stupid. 

He still can’t believe Reyes cried. He gets it, sort of—he can make sense of it, sort of—but he just can’t _understand_ it. Jesse ain’t the kind of pup they would’ve raised or wanted. He ain’t useful to ‘em, ain’t easy to talk to or be around, ain’t been anything but _trouble_ for ‘em. 

He don’t even love them. 

There ain’t nothing he’s done that oughta make Reyes care so damn much that he’d cry, he tells himself, burying his face in a pillow as he wraps his arms around it tight. 

There ain’t nothing he’s done that oughta have made Reyes give him the go bag, neither. 

He just don’t _understand_. No matter what everybody on base was saying, no matter what Reyes and Morrison said or did themselves, no matter what he heard—it just don’t make sense in his head. He don’t fit in their lives, and they shouldn’t want him there. 

He ain’t nothing _like_ them. He don’t want what they want or care about the things they care about or feel anything they feel. They want their pup any way they can get him and Jesse understands that, but it still don’t make _sense_. The puzzle piece still don’t fit right. The thing that’d make it make sense still ain’t there. 

Why can’t he understand? Everybody else in that damn place understood it, so why can’t _he_? 

What’s wrong with him, that he can’t? 

.

.

.

Jesse leaves the motel tired and miserable and feeling like hell and hops the first bus out of town. Another alpha tries to chat him up at the bus stop and he just wants them to shut up and die. He hates this. He wants to be home already. He wants things to make _sense_ again. 

Ashe makes sense to him. He understands Ashe like nobody else, and she understands him just the same. They’re a good team. Do good work together. Get shit _done_ together. 

He misses that feeling so bad it _hurts_. 

He misses . . . 

Jesse shakes the stupid thoughts out of his head and gets on the bus and takes a seat in the very back. He watches out the window the whole ride, trying not to think nothing too painful or confusing. It’s just the heat, he tells himself, the last traces of it in his system making him stupid and vulnerable in a way he never normally is. He knows better. He knows better, and it ain’t much farther back to Deadlock and normal fucking life. 

That’s all he needs or wants. That’s all he cares about. That’s all . . . 

Jesse lays his head against the window and stares out it so hard his eyes burn. 

His trigger finger itches, but it ain’t Deadeye they’re burning with. 

.

.

.

The diner is small and nearly empty. It’s late, and nothing’s happening here except Jesse’s eating a very late meal and a couple other people are being too damn loud in the corner and the waitress is more talkative than he’d like. 

So when the trio of B's with the ski masks and guns show up and demand the waitress crack the register, well . . . 

That ain’t Jesse’s problem, now is it. 

The people in the corner cower. The waitress stutters in terror, her pheromones reeking of fear. Jesse takes another bite of his meal, unbothered. It’s just a damn robbery; the betas’ll clean out the drawer and be gone. Ain’t worth all this fuss. 

“The safe!” one of the betas demands. The waitress looks panicked. 

“I can’t open it!” she says. The beta fires a shot into the ceiling. The waitress screams; so do the people in the corner. 

Jesse . . . 

Jesse gets up and coldcocks the closest member of the trio with perfect form, sending them staggering backwards, and then he draws the gun Reyes gave him and his eyes fucking _burn_. 

They don’t even get another shot off. 

.

.

.

Jesse clears out of that town quick, for obvious reasons. 

.

.

.

Fuck, that was stupid, Jesse thinks in irritation as he drives a hotwired truck with the wrong license plates on it out of town. He could’ve gotten arrested. Sure as shit just because Reyes let him go don’t mean there ain’t some kind of warrant out for him, and he ain’t interested in ending up in prison. He’s already gotten close enough to that enough times for one lifetime. 

Anyway, he can’t imagine how unimpressed Reyes would be if he got taken in by some small town cops. 

. . . can’t imagine how unimpressed _Ashe_ would be, he corrects himself. 

Who does he think he is, anyway? It was a fucking robbery, not a damn _crisis_. Who cares if they’d scared the waitress a bit, or what they might’ve been about to do? Ain’t on _him_ what no petty criminals do with their lives. It would’ve been fine, anyway; they’d have taken the money and run and been done with it. But no, Jesse had to fucking _do_ something about it. 

He ain’t the heroic type. 

He’s just gonna blame all that time surrounded by Overwatch agents and call it a day, he decides. 

Ain’t like that’s a mistake he’ll be making again, after all. 

.

.

.

What is wrong with his life, Jesse thinks. He's in a too-crowded bar that didn't bother to card him, and he _wants_ to be drinking but instead a pair of O girls probably a good five years older than him are hiding behind him from a drunk and grabby A a good twenty years older than any of them. 

Jesse has no idea why they looked at _him_ and thought he was a good place to hide, frankly. He was just drinking his whiskey at the bar and minding his own damn business. 

They must not realize he's an O too, he thinks. It's crowded enough in here, and the whole place stinks of smoke and alcohol. He can smell _them_ just fine, yeah, but he's always had a good sense of smell. 

Might be the SEP thing, come to think of it. 

Hm. That's . . . a thought, ain't it. 

"C'mon, don't be like that, pretty girls," the A slurs, trying to get around him, and Jesse makes a face and sets down his drink. 

"Get bent, old man," he says sourly as he shoves him back, because he is a stupid, stupid bastard, and then the A's friends show up and he gets in his first barfight in fucking _months_. 

Fucking of course he does. 

.

.

.

"Sorry," one of the O girls says. Her name's Marci, apparently. "We thought you were an A." 

"Figured," Jesse grunts, head tipped back as she holds a damp paper towel to his fucked-up face. They're all in the O bathroom and he's bleeding all over it. That A and his buddies are bleeding a lot worse outside the bar, though. The bouncers kicked 'em out, mercifully, and oddly did not also kick Jesse out. Mind, he'd have gotten the hell out of Dodge anyway, but he can't get his fucking nose to quit bleeding. It might be broken again, though he hopes not. It definitely hurts like a bitch either way. 

"Sorry," the other girl—Dahlia—says too. "You did really good, though. You army or something?" 

"My ma and sire are," Jesse says before he can quite think better of it. 

"Well, you owe them really nice Christmas gifts this year, then," Dahlia says. Jesse resists the urge to laugh. It'd probably hurt. 

"Suppose I do at that," he says easily, like he's ever bought a Christmas gift for someone in his damn _life_ , much less for Reyes or Morrison. 

"I don't think your nose is broken," Marci says, taking away the paper towel and wincing a bit. "You're definitely still bleeding, though. And you might be concussed." 

"'Course I might," Jesse sighs. Good thing Reyes packed more than one spare shirt, 'cuz he's bled all over this one. 

"We could drive you to the ER," Dahlia offers, and Jesse grimaces gingerly. 

"Yeah, let's not do that," he says. "I appreciate the offer, miss, but I ain't much for hospitals." 

"Well, someone should still keep an eye on you tonight," Dahlia says, laying a hand on his arm, and anyway that's how Jesse don't gotta pay for a motel room that night. 

So that's nice, at least. 

.

.

.

In the morning he says his goodbyes to Marci and Dahlia all nice and polite, and they send him off with a decent breakfast in him and a bit less tension in his limbs. He's spent worse nights than shacked up with a pair of very grateful and very pretty O's, for sure. Makes him feel a little better about things. 

He lights a cigar, and he walks to the bus stop. 

Ain't much farther now, he thinks.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
